The Bottom Line: '...and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna

In the midst of an ongoing controversy that started in 2017 about the Arkansas Freedom of Information and the city of Fort Smith's reluctance to adhere to state law, the city established an "email export" system in an effort to "promote transparency" by posting a link to the city website to give citizens access to emails from, to and between the mayor and city directors.

The stated idea was to promote "open and honest government" and the system was implemented on January 16, 2018. By downloading an "unzip" application and software capable of reading the emails, citizen's could be comfortable in the "transparency" provided since all business was being conducted in the "open".

The system had the appearance of working fine until the middle of May, when updates to the system either ceased or all parties involved just stopped using the city email system all together.

The lack of updates coincided with the public disclosure by Today in Fort Smith of several controversial emails along with added pressure from lawsuits filed against the city regarding the FOIA laws, mainly from attorney Joey McCutchen.

The bottom line? I'm a cause and effect kind of guy who doesn't believe in "coincidences" per se. But one of only two New Year's Resolution I made yesterday was to add a modicum of "benefit of the doubt" to my repertoire of curmudgeonly disdain for bullshit. So in an altruistic moment of uncharacteristic "fairness" here it goes...

Today in Fort Smith, after over seven months of going to the city website once a week in an unsuccessful effort to access the email "dump", reached out to city administrator Carl Geffken over the weekend who says he was was unaware that the system had not been updated since June.

TIFS sent the following email to Geffken on Monday:

"Mr. Geffken:

The much ballyhooed "email export" system that was supposed to help guarantee some sort of "transparency" for city business has not been updated since June 16 of this year. This feature was supposedly one of the responses of the city to the ongoing problem the city seemed to have with open and honest government. I know that public funds were expended to facilitate the feature, yet after several months of email "dumps" the procedure just stopped. Can you tell me the status of this situation? It's really frustrating to go the feature--which is still prominently displayed on the city website--once a week to only find nothing has been updated. Dennis McCaslin

Today in Fort Smith"

We received this reply on Tuesday:

"Dennis,

Thank you for your email. I’ll look to determine if the downloads have not been updated and if so, it will be corrected. Thanks,

Carl E. Geffken

City Administrator

City of Fort Smith"

Yeah. Get back to me on that. You had one job, Carl.

For those of you unaware of the dynamic, I'm not the biggest fan of Carl E. and I have it on pretty good source that the feeling is mutual.

Which is cool.

I get the whole "castle moat" mentality when it comes to dealing with news people that fail to fall in line with the agenda.

But I have never been a guy to go along to get along and when I encounter self-serving public officials attempting to abrogate our way of life and ignore the will of all but a handful of self-anointed hidden-handlers, I get like Billy Jack confronting Mr. Posner in the town square. (But I digress. More on that in the weeks to come).

I will say this for ol' Carl. In among a lot of things I don't respect about the guy is a grudging acquiescence to the fact that he's usually upfront with his disdain for the public input into his "business". (But I digress. More about that in the weeks to come.)

Right or wrong, he sticks to his guns. So kudos to gun sticking. And he doesn't hide. He's proud of his work. And he's surrounded himself with a plurality of "yes men" to do his bidding. Or vice versa.

So since I said all that, I'll say all this...as much taxpayer money that has been spent defending three goonie-goo-hoos and the notion that they are somehow above the law because they decided they are...one would think a not-so-transparent effort at providing an appearance of transparency is worth keeping updated.

There are only two possible solutions to this riddle. Either the lack of updates to the email repository have been deliberate or the guy with a six-figure income on the sheltered side of the moat simply hasn't been paying attention and didn't know we have been stuck on May 16 in perpetuity.

I mean, my broke ass with a $400 laptop sitting at a Walmart particle-board desk in the southeast corner of my kitchen shouldn't have to point out to the city that their much-ballyhooed patch on a problem they created themselves isn't working. (But I digress. More about that in the weeks to come.)

Who does IT for the city? Nick from Dunder Mifflin Scranton? (Obscure "The Office" reference. Look it up.)

Seven and a half-months. I should have addressed this sooner. I have been negligent in my due diligence in holding people's feet to the fire because I got tired of smelling nasty, roasted feet all the time. But SOMEONE should have caught the flaw.

But that second New Year's Resolution I referenced above? (I digress. More about that in the weeks to come.)

It's January 1 and the same ol', new Board of Directors -- along with a duly-elected new Mayor-- are falling into place as we speak.

Between that and shouting down new sales tax efforts, 2019 ought to be a helluva year.

This is one tin solider that ain't riding away.